NANNY STATERS GOTTA NANNY: 2016 “may be the sweet spot” for sugar taxes.

Scandinavian countries have had such taxes, with varying degrees of success, for many years, and in 2012, France and Hungary joined the list, followed by Mexico in 2014.

But some public policy experts see them becoming more widespread, as nations seek to bolster their finances in an uncertain global economy and a new generation of savvy consumers is more concerned about health and less trusting of big corporations.

“This puts political leaders in a stronger position to enact policies such as taxes because the companies aren’t considered unbreakable,” said Kelly Brownell, dean of Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy in North Carolina.

Now India, the Philippines and Indonesia have said they are studying similar levies while Britain debated the issue in parliament late last year and Prime Minister David Cameron said in January that he would not rule out a sugar tax.

How about a tax on all new tax proposals, to be paid for by their proponents? Such a tax might work as a disincentive to bad taxation, and give legislators an incentive to spend their limited energies and incomes on only the good taxes.